Second show in a row that I thought wasn't too bad -- the matches were fun for three-minute throwaway whatevers, and the promos were, by and large, not atrocious. They could still be putting on more than ten minutes of wrestling per week, I think, and their apparently quite deliberate decision not to do so is something I find frustrating.

Chris Sabin is funnier when he's not trying so hard. Outside Cornette's office (VKM and Bob Backlund are waiting around here as well), Borash encounters Sabin wearing a bathrobe and using a walker, goofing on "old man" Jerry Lynn and complaining about "you kids today" with their six-sided rings -- back in his day the rings only had two sides! I guess Russo wasn't around when Nash made that joke that other time.

Lynn is distracted and Austin Starr -- excuse me, THE Austin Starr (???) -- wins cheap, because, again, no one in the X Division can actually get a finisher off anymore.

Sabin, Starr, and Shelley (no hard feelings, I guess) beat down Lynn until Senshi makes the save. There's some really good matches percolating in there; they just gotta let them out.

Tomko is wearing a shirt with the word PUMP on it in big letters. The clues are really getting less subtle. Nevertheless, the obvious suspect is not an option in the new "Who is Christian's consultant?" text message poll -- the options are Samoa Joe, Goldberg (!), Brock Lesnar (?!), and "None of the above." Hmmm.

James Storm has to explain to Eric Young that everyone saw Young trying to buy condoms on last week's show. Eric Young looks directly into the camera and blinks, as if realizing what it is for the first time ever -- heh.

Petey Williams w/Gail Kim vs. Robert Roode w/Miss Brooks: Petey has some nice moves but they're always the same nice moves. This is perfectly adequate -- it's here mostly to further the Storm/Williams feud.

After the Roode pin due to Stormference, things break down -- the heels (Roode, Storm, and their respective ladies) have the upper hand until Eric Young runs in and chases them out -- Roode gets pissed off at Miss Brooks and Young comes to her rescue. He offers his arm and Brooks takes it, much to Roode's chagrin. Then the light bulb comes on as Roode realizes that this is all part of the plan. (Brooks apparently realizes that Roode is too much of a meathead to act convincingly, and thus must be left unaware of the finer points of her machinations.)

As dopey as this angle has been and to whatever boneheaded, nonsensical end it's inevitably headed, this segment actually came together really well.

Ron Killings -- okay, I fast forwarded through this.

James Mitchell cuts a promo challenging Sting to a "Prison Yard" match -- which apparently involves a...really small cage...? Mitchell says that either Sting accepts the match, or -- well, Mitchell does have a tape of Sting committing kidnapping and assault. I like that Sting's heinous actions are being used to blackmail him.

Hoyt challenges the Kiss Demon to a BASEBRAWL!

AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe: No contest at about 3 1/2 minutes when -- following another "possum" attempt by Styles -- Rhino comes out and starts kicking Styles' ass. Well, if they're going to do this match on free TV, it's a better way to end it than pinning Styles clean, I guess. Some day they should have a main event that's worth watching -- maybe some people would think that the PPVs would be actually worth watching. This series of "PPV quality" main events that turn out to be brief, disappointing throwaways just seems counterproductive.

Joe decides to stay in the ring until Cage comes out to "clarify his position." Angle comes out instead -- he is sure that Joe is the consultant and is sick of this crap. They come to blows -- until Cage comes out and nails Kurt with a chair. He offers his hand to Joe -- no, no they're fighting. I guess Joe's not the consultant!

Styles is back out -- nails Joe with the chair. Cage gets Angle into Unprettier position -- Styles with a chair to Angle's back -- and Christian hits the Unprettier. Nice. You know, Cage/Styles vs. Angle/Joe would be a pretty great match. BOOK IT TNA

Sabin mocking Jerry Lynn would work a lot better if Lynn were really that old. He's what, early 40s? Hardly Flairesque. I mean, I get the point of it, but Lyn's out of the ring for barely two years and isn't exactly ancient. Hell, he's four years younger than the facepainted guy they regularly use in the main events.

To those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost. This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires, and lights, in a box.-Edward R. Murrow

Well just because Lynn isn't Flair's age doesn't mean he isn't old, he's just short of 20 years older than Sabin, that's a pretty big difference.

Like Karlos said not much wrestling action but a pretty good show. A lot of the TNA guys have been doing the small things great this show. Eric Young's reaction to seeing the camera, Sabin's impersonation of Lynn, Roode realizing the plan is working, Shelley running like he's about to do a dive onto the other X Division guys but stops short and spits water on them instead, AJ just being a complete ass and doing his own version of the Jericho shuffle, the Christopher Daniels promo, Joe sitting in his chair non-chalantly while Angle is staring him down. A lot of good stuff if they'd only get to wrestle. Bot the X-Division match and the main event could've been really really good matches if they had more time.

Also I like the Joe/AJ main event. We've seen it lots of times before but it still seems like a big match and it doesn't give away a potential never seen before ppv match like the last two weeks. Plus we've never seen the match up with AJ playing the heel.

Also Christian continues to cut awesome heel promos. I hope that interference from the consultant at least lets him keep the belt for another month.

The consultant angle seems obvious but I actually know several friends who haven't caught on to the clues yet and think the consultant is going to be Samoa Joe, which is exactly what Christian wants us to think. But the Pump shirt was pretty obvious, if they can't figure it out now then my friends are just dumb.

Pretty bad show in my opinion. Little wrestling, and angles with little sense.

Two things no one has mentioned:

The video package for the whole Roode Inc/Miss Brooks/Eric Young thing seemed as though it was TRYING to point out how poorly designed this angle is. The message of the video package was: Miss Brooks is trying to get Eric Young to have sex, because she's trying to get him to join Roode Inc, but he doesn't want to have sex, so she threatened to fire him from Roode Inc. if he didn't. So, she threatened to fire him in an attempt to hire him. Quite a trick. All it really needed was better editing, and maybe a line in there where someone says that once Young actually tries the sex thing, he'll be so hooked on it that he'll be under Traci's control, but it didn't have that.

And the whole LAX thing. Lance Storm (see below) complains that it's unrealistic and the D-no-udley family should, in storyline, be pressing charges if something like that happened. I have no problem with that; that's the way things go in wrestling. My problem was the presentation. Mostly: who the heck WAS that guy? I rewound the tape a few times trying to get a name, and couldn't hear it--and the closed captioning people completely gave up on it and only transcribed a few lines here and there. The comments/interviews after made clear that he's somehow related to the Dudleys, but give no clue who he is. Is he someone who would be familiar to old-school ECW fans? I got into ECW after most of the "other" Dudleys had faded from the scene, so I really wouldn't know. But I can't be that unusual in the TNA audience. Again, just a brief explanation would have helped.

My favorite moment was the James Gang and Backlund sitting their patiently waiting for Cornette, and then Hemme just marches in and talks to him. I love the implication that the James Gang aren't capable of figuring out what a doorknob is on their own. It is not a good sign that this was the highlight of the show for me!

Lance Storm has a rant about the show up, making the point among other things that there were just way too many people on camera for a one hour show. Check it out at http://www.stormwrestling.com/020207.html

There is no chance of WWF putting Rock vs Austin again at WrestleMania. Also ol' Stone Cold has won the Rumble 3 seperate times. The only person Rock isn't in the Rumble so that only leaves HHH. My pick to win this year.